


The Feeling of Fatherhood

by MadameFluffnStuff



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 20cc's of the fluffy tender moments of bonding between parents and their newborn, Aang (Avatar) Is A Good Parent, Aang has never held a baby before Bumi II was born, Aang is best boi fight me, F/M, Parent Katara (Avatar), baby!Bumi II, bestdad!Aang, bestmom!Katara, fluff-aid-kit essentials, hc, no beta we die like men, partially wrote this out of spite because my heart needs some fluff rn, sweeties will sweet, tom-tom was a toddler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFluffnStuff/pseuds/MadameFluffnStuff
Summary: Hakoda didn’t warn Aang about this part.He had never held a baby before.
Relationships: Aang & Bumi II, Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Bumi II & Katara
Comments: 12
Kudos: 115





	The Feeling of Fatherhood

Aang stayed in the room until the healers asked him to leave. They needed the extra room to work. 

Aang didn’t give a damn. 

Katara needed to hold his hand until it turned purple. He wouldn’t leave her. 

He almost hated that Katara convinced him to go. She would be fine, she said. The look in her eyes and the wince of her jaw told him otherwise. 

She held his hand a  _ bit _ tighter before she let go, and Aang almost argued. 

Once outside their room, he threw open the nearest window with a gust of airbending and called inside the blizzard that was throwing itself against his temple. He crafted a frozen chair, sloppy and lopsided in his haste, and sat in it before the healers crowding into the room could tell him to go even further away from his wife. 

The head healer rolled her eyes and almost asked him to move on principle, despite his seat being, quite literally, frozen to the ground. 

Aang sat so close to the door that he risked a concussion every time it opened. His leg wouldn’t stop bouncing, and the wind paced back and forth, pressing against the door like it might see what was happening inside. It swirled and hid in the ruffling of his robes when he heard Katara’s first cry. 

Aang’s chest caved in like it was made of glass, but something kept him anchored in place. It felt like hands on his shoulders, and it brushed his mind like Kyoshi. 

Her screams eventually died out, though the brand they seared into his mind was raw and bleeding. Aang dug his nails out of his legs and was in the room before the healers were out. 

Katara was sweaty and pale and struggling to keep her eyes open, but she was smiling a smile that Aang had never seen before. Moonlight wept through the window and colored her like an oil painting. The now slowly falling snow dappled shadows over her like beads of rain sliding down a window. 

He was at her side in the next second. She looked like she had danced through hell. 

She was the most beautiful mess Aang had ever seen.

Katara's eyes were glazed and struggled to focus before finding him, and Aang’s world had never been brighter. “Hey...Hey, there, handsome,” she said, her voice dry and cracked like old paint peeling from the side of a ship. 

Aang’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Good evening, gorgeous.” He wiped the pasty sweat from her brow and tucked the frayed bits of loose hair behind her ears. He kissed her forehead. He took a second to breathe her in and drown out the lingering scent of drying blood. He pressed his brow to hers, and he relished the small smile he drew from his wife. She leaned into his hand cupping her face, and when he stroked her cheek with his thumb, she exhaled like she hadn’t breathed since last she saw him. 

Aang’s voice got impossibly quieter. “How are you feeling?”

Katara’s words slurred the barest bit. “Better n’that you're here.”

Aang kissed her again. “I love you. I love you so,  _ so _ much, Katara.”

He pressed his lips to Katara’s cheek and held there, trying to say what words couldn’t.

Katara giggled. “I love you, too. Now get over here and meet your son.”

“...Son?”

Katara turned  _ just _ a bit to show the bundle in her arms. “Say hello to your father, Bumi. This is your dad.”

Aang froze.

Dad.

Aang was a dad, now.

He was a  _ dad _ .

He had a  _ son _ .

“H...Hey…” Aang’s smile grew ever larger the longer he looked at their little Bumi— _ Spirits _ , he was so  _ small _ —, and it stretched ever wider even after it felt like it might tear his face in two. “H-Hey there, little guy…”

Aang crawled in bed beside Katara, careful of her like she was made of glass. He should have known better—Katara was made of steel at minimum—, but some part of him had him moving cautiously like he might scare away the moment and the peace it brought.

“Well, go on, then.” Katara’s smile shone in her eyes even though she was too exhausted to curl her lip in a grin. “Hold him.”

Hakoda didn’t warn him about this part.

Aang had never held a baby before. 

“I...What if I...I-I don’t know—”

Katara sighed and gave him a tired but happy smile. “Aang, hold your son.”

Aang’s arms trembled as he took the swaddled bundle. Katara talked softly and instructed him, adjusting his hand, telling him to support Bumi’s head.

Aang didn’t know how to describe how he felt. 

His insides were filled with clouds.

He steeled himself and tried not to shake so much as Katara guided his hand away, just a bit, so his arm was still supporting his son’s tiny weight but letting his fingers have room to crawl up the bundle of downy blanket.

Bumi’s skin was so soft, like the moonpeach blossoms in their garden. His son squirmed to Aang’s touch like he was still water that Aang had just disturbed. 

“Katara, he’s—Katara, what do I—?”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” She laughed. “He’s just waking up a bit. He’s like you in the mornings.” She kissed Aang’s cheek and compelled him to lean his shoulder to hers. 

“You can touch him, you know. He won’t bite. He doesn’t have any teeth.”

“What if I hurt him? O-Or scare him? What if—?”

“Aang.” Katara cupped Aang’s face. “He is your son. You are his father.” She kissed between his eyes and settled her cheek on his shoulder. She ran her hand over Bumi’s head before pulling away, for the moment. “You won’t hurt him.”

Aang swallowed. His son squirmed when Katara pulled away. Bumi was looking for her. His closed eyes scrunched up, and his lip wrinkled. 

The tender life in Aang’s arms swallowed the beginnings of a whine, and Aang’s heart broke and ran over with every feeling. 

“ _ Hey _ , hey, hey— _ shhh _ ...” Aang didn’t know whether he was moving on instinct or impulse, but he was too focused on the groping fingers, so very small, fitfully finding their way out of the blanket. Everything about himself became second nature—even his lungs threatened to abandon their attention to keep breathing in order to focus on his son. “ _ Shhh _ ...It’s okay, Boom...It’s okay…”

Katara kissed Aang’s shoulder and scratched his back. Pride oozed out of her smile. 

Aang touched his finger to one of Bumi’s groping hands.

Aang’s entire world stood still.

Bumi paused mid-squirm and immediately latched on. He wasn’t letting go.

His little hand pulled back into the warmth of his blanket, and Aang was so attuned to his every movement that he let his finger be dragged closer, too.

Then Bumi stopped pulling, content with the splayed hand blanketing him. 

Aang was laughing and crying before he realized it. 

His son felt safe. With  _ him _ .

Aang had to keep so many people safe—so,  _ so  _ many—, but they always harbored a slight doubt in their eyes. He was only human. Even he made mistakes.

Bumi trusted him like it was the most natural thing in the world. He felt safe with him. Truly and genuinely safe. 

And he didn’t even know him, yet.

Katara rubbed Aang’s back some more and moved only to kiss his cheek before settling back down, and if he wasn’t holding their newborn son, Aang would have kissed her like they wouldn’t see the morning. He settled with kissing her hair and the part of her cheek that he could reach without disturbing the spot she had nestled herself into, and his heart swelled when she grinned beneath his lips.

She leaned on him, but it felt so much more like she was keeping him up.

“Katara?”

“Hm?”

“Katara, we have a baby.”

“Mhm.”

“Katara,  _ we  _ have a  _ baby _ .”

Katara laughed, and some of the life returned to her face. “Really? I didn’t notice. I wonder where it came from.”

“Have I told you lately how gorgeous and amazing and wonderful and phenomenal you are? Because you are. A hundred million times over.”

“Your hyperbole is eloquent as always. I hope Bumi inherits it.”

Aang shook his head and laughed. “Oh, nonono. He won’t be anything like me. I can assure you that much. That would be horrible.”

Katara looked at him, concerned and somehow able to pick up the distress in his voice even though she was struggling to stay awake. “Aang, why would you say that?”

Aang struggled to find the words. He was doing that a lot, tonight. 

The bundle in his arms was perfect. Bumi was his and Katara’s son. 

Bumi was  _ perfect _ . Just like his mother.

Aang wasn’t perfect. He was as far as could be from perfect. 

Aang could only wish that he wouldn’t taint his son. Bumi was a part of Katara. The two of them were worth— _ more _ than worth—protecting. 

He could only hope that Bumi wouldn’t turn out like him. 

Guilt weighed Aang into the mattress. His arms were shaking before he realized it, but Katara’s hand rested over his where it wound under and around their son.

Their son.

Their beautiful baby boy.

Katara’s thumb rubbed up and down his knuckles. 

“Well, I hope he takes after you. I hope he has your little laugh that can brighten up a room with just a giggle. I hope his heart is as big as yours is, too.” She cuddled closer to Aang’s side. “He’s going to love you so,  _ so  _ much.” 

Aang didn’t know which of them Katara was talking to, but he sagged while Bumi twitched, his delicate fingers finding a fold in Aang’s robes small enough for his hand to grab onto. 

Aang’s heart soared. 

“Hey, there...Hey, there, bud.” Aang brushed the barest bit of the back of one of his fingers on his son’s tender cheek—so soft, too vulnerable. Aang didn’t know why he expected rejection. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Bumi. My name’s Aang.” Aang hesitated. “I’m your dad.”

The words left his mouth, and Aang couldn’t stop his tears if he tried.

He said it again, just to hear it—to make sure this all wasn’t some beautiful dream. He didn’t know why he was waiting for someone to tell him that it was.

“...I’m your dad.”

Bumi smacked his lips and held the finger on his cheek. 

“I’m all yours, buddy.” He kissed his son’s head, and he kissed Katara’s, too, when he pulled back. “Always—I will always be yours. I love you more than you could ever know, and I will  _ always  _ be yours.”

Katara leaned over. She brushed back the few silk-thin threads of hair on Bumi’s head and kissed him.

She kissed Aang, too, first on the dying trails of tears on his cheeks and then on his lips. His smile kept her trapped for longer than her shaking muscles could keep her up, and they were both laughing when she slumped against him again. 

They didn’t talk for the rest of the night. Words weren’t needed. 

In that moment, their very souls were peeled raw and exposed, and Aang and Katara tenderly wove into themselves the newest joy to claim a place in their hearts. 

At some point, Bumi was in Katara’s arms again, holding onto and bonding with his mother.

Aang sat behind them. He laid at enough of an angle that Katara didn’t have to keep herself up, and he molded himself like armor around his family. He pressed his cheek to Katara’s temple and bent his knees up to sit like castle walls keeping his two treasures safe. One of Aang’s arms wound around Katara’s, and he rested his hand over hers so they were both cradling their son. 

The wind, content and curious, pushed and pulled the warm feeling in the room like it was trying to stretch out the moment and make it last forever. Aang painted the back of Katara’s hand with his thumb and drew the lapping currents of air. The wind dripped tiny breezes like happy tears, welcoming into the world the new life that had air braided as deeply and as tightly into the strings in its soul as in Aang’s. 

Aang’s other hand laid on his son. His fingers reached under Bumi’s chin and brushed the barest tip of his pointer finger to his son’s cheek.

Whenever his heart threatened to spill over, Aang gave Katara tender kisses to her hair, cheek, and wherever else he could reach. He eventually rested his chin on her shoulder, and he grinned impossibly wider when Katara leaned her head to his and relaxed. She took down every one of her barriers and put herself and Bumi in Aang’s care, trusting him unconditionally. 

Something like pride filled Aang’s chest and made him feel bigger and stronger than he was. 

Bumi, one hand already clutched to Katara, squirmed fitfully, almost looking like he might be afraid. His tiny arm blindly grasped into the void and reached into an emptiness that made his face scrunch up all the more.

But then Aang pointed out his little finger to catch Bumi’s hand when it flailed past. 

And Bumi recognized his father’s touch and latched onto Aang without question.

Calm that came from safety settled over Bumi’s tender features. 

Katara smiled and rolled her head back. She nuzzled the curve of Aang’s jaw. Her voice was small and lost volume with every word, but it was right near his ear. It was bellied by her smile and something else that Aang couldn’t quite place even though it had every one of his senses latching onto it and his inner fire threatening to roar. 

“Look at you, Mister Dad. I knew my Forever Boy would be an amazing father.”

Aang held her closer—her and their son. The two halves of his heart teetered on sleep, and Aang swore on his honor, his past lives, and everything that he was or ever would be that he would keep them safe. 

Katara relaxed against his chest. 

Bumi held his finger a little tighter.

Aang felt like he could move a mountain.

**Author's Note:**

> Rushed to finish this fic because I’ve had a hell of a rough week and needed a fluff-aid-kit. (apologies for any choppiness🙏) Hope you enjoyed it!


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